It is possible that there are A-list Hollywood stars who enjoy fame less than Joaquin Phoenix, but it would be hard to find them. The impression the man formerly known as Leaf Bottom gives is that any kind of public appearance is a miserable chore. It’s as if he would rather be swimming through sewage than presenting awards at the Oscars, glad-handing at film premieres, giving interviews — oh, how he seems to hate giving interviews! — or any of the hundred and one other obligations that any leading actor faces today. Yet he continues to make fascinatingly offbeat choices that have kept him firmly at the top of filmmakers’ wish lists for decades. Joaquin Phoenix is a rare figure in an increasingly homogenized industry.
Imagine if Johnny Depp had never made Pirates of the Caribbean. Or, better, if he had and then returned to the esoteric films that he made before he was corrupted by the machine, and you have Phoenix’s appeal in a nutshell. His current and forthcoming projects are brilliant examples of why the actor continues to defy any conventional expectations. There are few other leading men who would cheerfully sign up to appear in a three-hour surreal tragicomedy from Ari Aster, perhaps Hollywood’s premier purveyor of off-kilter weirdness, but Beau Is Afraid, a Joycean odyssey into the unknown, stars Phoenix in what is rapidly becoming a kind of signature role of his: the quixotic man-child who finds himself adrift in an increasingly bizarre situation. As ever, he has been praised to the skies, even if the film has polarized critics. Phoenix’s performance has been called bold, daring and — as ever with this actor — positively heroic in its willingness to go to ever-greater lengths in search of the character.
A different kind of heroism will be on display in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, which has undergone an oddly low-key marketing process, for a film featuring epic battle scenes with thousands of extras, and has revealed surprisingly little until recently, when a clip aired at the film industry’s trade exhibition CinemaCon. Unsurprisingly, the excerpt shown featured Phoenix in suitably imperious form as the world-conquering emperor, luring rival armies into a bloody trap, and it indicates — as if proof was still needed — the actor’s remarkable range. Countless actors have been mooted to play Napoleon at one time or another, in endless projects that have failed, but Phoenix, reuniting with his Gladiator director Scott, has shown that he can demonstrate the near-unhinged qualities of a man who may have tried, through force of personality alone, to alter the course of history.
Over the past couple of decades, Phoenix has built one of the most quietly fascinating bodies of work of any major actor. He has played Jesus, Joker, Johnny Cash and John Callahan, and attempted to sabotage his own career with the deranged mockumentary I’m Still Here, which led many to believe, in all sincerity, that Phoenix had essentially abandoned acting to pursue a career as a hip-hop artist. It was a very elaborate, straight-faced joke, and nearly did in his reputation; Phoenix remarked, ruefully, that the only work he was offered after its release was a supporting role in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, before Paul Thomas Anderson came to his rescue with the lead in the not-about-Scientology-honest drama The Master.
Next up for Phoenix post-Napoleon is a Joker sequel, Folie à Deux, in which he stars opposite Lady Gaga. It is rumored to contain extreme violence and musical numbers alike, and Phoenix, who won an Oscar for his performance in the first film, has been paid $20 million to reprise his Arthur Fleck character. It will undoubtedly be intriguing, provocative, controversial and unforgettable. Just like its leading man.
